There’s a 10-game slate in the NBA tonight, although the 6:00 ET start (Indiana at Brooklyn) doesn’t count in the most lucrative daily contests at DraftKings. The final three weeks is unpredictable in basketball, due to rest, injuries, auditions and varying degrees of motivation. But we’ll keep trying. [Read more…]

A nine-game NBA Monday can’t match the real-life excitement of Saturday’s clash between Golden State and San Antonio. DraftKings spices things up with a huge fantasy contest that pays a guaranteed $500,000 in prize money to more than 140,000 winners, including a cool hundred grand for the top score. It’s worth four bucks to take your best shot. [Read more…]

Six superstars with salaries of $10000 or more take the court tonight. Russell Westbrook $10500 and Kevin Durant $10100 may not have to play much in the second half of a mismatch in Philadelphia. Enes Kanter $5200, Randy Foye $3100 and the second unit could thrive in garbage time. [Read more…]

Just six NBA teams have played at a .600 pace this season.
A seventh briefly reached the threshold last week, and you have to wonder how in the world they got there. Consider that this team:
Is in the bottom five in 3-point makes, attempts and percentage in the most prolific season for 3-pointers in league history.
Has been without its best player for over a month.
Responded to losing its best player by dealing two more of its top five remaining rotation players

In the brave new world of basketball analytics, trends and modules, a simpler stat surfaced this week that was utterly inexplicable.
Two teams have lost 10 games this season in which they led after three quarters. One is the league-worst Philadelphia 76ers, who have no one on their roster who knows how to win a game.
The other is the Oklahoma City Thunder, who have two of the supposed best closers in the game in Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. [Read more…]

Former NBA Executive of the Year Mark Warkentien once told me a story about this time of the season.
Warkentien often traveled with his teams during the season and came to practices both at home and on the road. But not in the days leading up to the trading deadline.
While with Denver, Warkentien was on the road with the Nuggets and sitting in the hotel lobby one morning before practice. It was a couple of days before the trading deadline. A

TORONTO— Say this for Russell Westbrook: It’s only fitting that someone who embodies Kobe Bryant’s ceaseless competitiveness would take home the MVP award in Bryant’s final All-Star game.
Westbrook-ASG Russell Westbrook scored 31 points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished out five assists to take home his second straight MVP award in a 196-173 win— a record number of points in the game and for the winning team— for the West over the East on Sunday night at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre.
“That’s